LABOR MP Bill Shorten has left his wife for the daughter of Kevin Rudd's newly appointed Governor-General, Quentin Bryce.

The parliamentary secretary for disabilities and children's services separated from his wife, Deborah Beale, in the past month and is understood to be in a relationship with Chloe Bryce.

Mr Shorten, who was formerly the Australian Workers' Union national secretary, has been touted as a future Labor leader for several years.

However, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd kept his distance yesterday from the political scandal engulfing one of his star MPs.

"We don't have any comment on the story,'' a spokesman for Mr Rudd said.

Mr Shorten and Ms Bryce have been friends for at least a year.

The pair had dinner together at Quentin Bryce's residence in Brisbane on September 5, 2007, when she was Queensland Governor, according to a Vice-Regal notice in Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper.

"In the evening, the Governor received the call of Ms Chloe Bryce-Parkin and Mr Bill Shorten,'' the notice states.

Mr Shorten then went on to become elected as the Member for Maribyrnong at the federal election and thanked his wife, Deborah, in the maiden speech he delivered in February this year, four months after visiting the now-Governor General with Ms Bryce-Parkin.

"Above all others - and I can say this on Valentine's Day - I thank my wife, Deb Beale, an endlessly intelligent, supportive and loving woman,'' he said.

"I knew this instantly from my first outing, when she agreed to visit a picket line with me.''

He also thanked his parents-in-law, Julian and Felicity Beale.

Mr Shorten was one of five MPs invited to attend the September ceremony where Ms Quentin Bryce was sworn in as the 25th Governor-General of Australia.

Chloe Bryce attended the ceremony, with her two children, Georgette and Rupert, from her marriage to architect Roger Parkin.

Mr Parkin's works include a house he designed for the late Beatle George Harrison on Hamilton Island and the Hamilton Island resort itself.

When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, Mr Parkin said he did not want to comment on the circumstances of his marriage break-up.

Ms Bryce, who works as a media consultant for Cement Australia, did not return calls yesterday.

Deborah Beale and Bill Shorten were considered a power couple in the Labor Party.

They met while studying for their MBAs.

Ms Beale, whose father Julian Beale is a wealthy Melbourne investor and former federal Liberal MP, was a powerful political asset for Mr Shorten.

She provided a strong link to the corporate world through her father's friendship with multi-millionaire businessman Richard Pratt.

Mr Pratt flew Mr Shorten back to Australia from the UnitedStates on his private plane when the Beaconsfield mine disaster occurred in 2006.

Mr Shorten's role representing workers during the Beaconsfield tragedy significantly raised the former union leader's public profile.

"Ms Beale was well regarded by the Labor Party and well-connected in corporate areas,'' one source said.

"Everyone thought they were the Princess Diana and the Prince of the party.''

Mr Shorten formerly dated and lived with current Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who is understood to speak highly of her new parliamentary colleague.

Mr Shorten and his media adviser, Vincent Tulley, would not return calls yesterday.

We saw politicians yesterday suggesting this story had no place in the public domain — one of them was Labor’s Tony Burke who left his wife for a staffer he had travelled the world with at taxpayers’ expense. We are entitled to dismiss such views. As for the Canberra Press Gallery, they might be concerned that some of their relationships with politicians or staffers could come under scrutiny. In some circumstances there could be a public interest in that occurring.

But their inconsistency in these matters is obvious. As a collective the gallery sat schtum on the politically-significant relationship between Labor’s Gareth Evans and Democrat-turned-Labor MP Cheryl Kernot for a full five years in the 1990s (Channel Nine’s Laurie Oakes broke the story after the relationship had ended).

And compare their coverage in recent years of historic allegations against Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten when they were teenagers. The relatively minor claims against Abbott triggered vastly more coverage and negative commentary than the far more serious police investigation did for Shorten. Why?

miketrees wrote on Feb 8^th, 2018 at 8:11pm:


Na....F@#k him....Barney would stick the boot in if it was his dog in the fight....Nothin wrong with taking the piss out of the dickhead is there???

philperth2010 wrote on Feb 8^th, 2018 at 8:18pm:


No, there is not.  He is a sanctimonious and hypocritical prick and I don't reckon he will survive this.  The rapacious schmedia will milk the crap out of him.  Bolt included.